Exclusive–Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Orders Force-Wide Review of Existing Fitness and Grooming Standards

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday ordered a department-wide review of existing standards for each military branch on physical fitness, body composition, and grooming — including on beards, Breitbart News has exclusively learned.

“We must remain vigilant in maintaining the standards that enable the men and women of our military to protect the American people and our homeland as the world’s most lethal and effective fighting force,” Hegseth said in a March 12, 2025, memorandum ordering the review.

“Our adversaries are not growing weaker, and our tasks are not growing less challenging. This review will illuminate how the Department has maintained the level of standards required over the recent past and the trajectory of any change in those standards,” he added.

Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot added in a statement to Breitbart News:

Unfortunately, the U.S. military’s high standards on body composition and other metrics eroded in recent years, particularly during the tenure of former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, who set a bad example from the top through his own personal corpulence. Secretary Hegseth is committed to restoring high standards, and this review is the first step in doing so.

Hegseth directed the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD(P&R)) to gather the existing aforementioned standards set by each military branch, review them and how they have changed over the last decade, since January 1, 2015.

The review will also look at why those standards changed and the impact of those changes.

Read the memo:

Rapid Force-Wide Review of Military Standards by Kristina Wong on Scribd

Hegseth has made returning the military to its core mission of warfighting his top priority, which includes having forces ready and fit to fight.

Hegseth spoke about the importance of standards at his confirmation hearing in January, telling Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) that “ensuring that standards are equal and high is of importance to [the president] and great importance to me.”

“Because in those ground combat roles, what is true is that the weight of the ruck on your back does not change. The weight of the 155 round that you have to carry does not change. The weight of the 240-Bravo machine gun you might have to carry does not change,” he said.

“And so whether it is a man or a woman, they have to meet the same high standards. And Senator, in any place where those things have been eroded or in courses criteria have been changed in order to meet quotas — racial quotas or gender quotas — that is putting a focus on something other than readiness, standards, meritocracy, and lethality.”

He also expressed support for gender-neutral physical fitness standards according to the job, and not by any other determinant.

“The standards need to be the same, and they need to be high. And they need to be set by the people closest to the problem set, closest to the understanding of what is required by that job. Commanders, 10 commanding officers, and co-COMs and elsewhere who understand the reality of what face, that is the feedback we should get. That is what should be enshrined and enforced,” he said.

“And no other set of political prerogatives — when I talk  about removing politics, ideological or political prerogatives — should contribute to those determinations. Nothing other than the execution of the mission.”

Since becoming defense secretary, Hegseth has highlighted the importance of physical fitness by carving time out during trips to conduct physical training with troops.

In Germany last month, he conducted PT with the 10th Special Forces Group. The photos from the session went viral.

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